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"#$ &'(()"*+

Unifor Local 87-M, SONG



May 6, 2014


Guild filing grievances
over digital job postings,
Page Editor layoffs

Union needs your help
to campaign against
second-tier digital wages

Most Page Editors
doing identical work
as Team Editor peers

Your Guild officials continue to meet with the company over the many issues that flow
from digital jobs in the newsroom, the latest Editorial and Circulation layoffs and a
potential new voluntary early retirement (VSP) program. Well keep at these efforts
weve had many hours of meetings, most recently yesterday and hope for progress.

Having said that, we arent prepared to stand aside while our company creates second-tier
jobs in the newsroom that threaten every one of us and damages the Stars precious
brand of quality journalism. We will not stand by as the company unfairly targets some of
our colleagues for layoff. With your active decision-making and endorsement along the
way, we will be campaigning with every tool we can muster to convince the company to
change course. We have much work to do on our own, including some steps were
already taking:

Digital jobs: Lord knows we need to dramatically up our digital game. But this abrupt
company introduction of something weve never negotiated a separation of print and
digital journalism, with second-tier wages for digital is a direct assault on our contract,
union seniority and every assumption weve been working under for a decade-plus. Until
now, weve always been told the challenge is to evolve from print-only to multi-platform
journalism. Weve embraced that challenge, and still do.
Heres our position: A journalist is a journalist. We are all digital reporters. We are all
digital editors. This is not Rogers or the Huffington Post. This is the Toronto Star. This is
thestar.com. And were damn proud to work here.



The company has the right to introduce new jobs into the newsroom. We have the right to
grieve the salary and classification of those proposed new jobs. Well be doing exactly
that in grieving the digital jobs the company has posted.
We don't need new editor or reporter designations to bring in new skills, if truly needed --
those job classifications already exist. Our biggest problem is the company attempt to put
all but the digital reporter jobs in a separate department called torstar.com. This is a
transparent bid to deny the rest of us our right, in the event of layoff, to bump into those
new newsroom jobs. The company would be free to build a second-tier newsroom of
much lower wages with immunity from the effects of layoffs. Its a clear and present
danger. Our fight is to prevent this. Our shared challenge here should not be to build up
print and digital walls, but to knock them down. Thats our goal.

Layoffs: Were also grieving the fact that a majority of the 11 fulltime Page Editors
targeted for layoff do exactly the same work as colleagues who are Team Editors. On the
photo desk, on the web desk, on the sports desk, editors sit side by side doing identical
work, but are categorized differently. This isnt fair. Were grieving that most of the Page
Editors targeted for layoff in July should not be considered Page Editors at all but Team
Editors, just like their peers, and therefore should not be included in the layoff notice.

We have a nightmare mix of both Team and Page Editors, a mess created by management
in recent years without regard for actual job duties. Some of the 60 (!) Team Editors are
actually Journalists in function, for example, either reporters or photographers, and have
been for ages. Weve long been pushing the company to clean this up. In recent months
the company has posted and moved a number of these misplaced Page Editors up to
Team Editor status, in effect reducing the potential layoff number. We applaud those
changes. But the unfairness continues for most of the Page Editors now facing layoff, and
well be defending their unique interests.

Next steps: The annual Torstar general meeting is tomorrow. Well be taking
advantage, with your assistance, of this opportunity to tell our companys board of
directors directly just how strongly we feel about whats happening in our newsroom.
We're booking space now for a Star unit meeting, hopefully early next week, where we
can really focus on all this stuff.

Whew! Thats a lot for one day. We have much to do, and we look forward to your
ongoing support and active involvement. Remember: This is our paper too; our Atkinson
Principles.

In solidarity,

Liz Marzari, Star unit chair
Dan Smith, vice-chair